Roccat Ryos MK Pro Review and Ratings

Editors’ Rating:

Our Verdict:
Roccat’s top-tier mechanical keyboard comes in a variety of Cherry MX flavors and delivers stellar control over its backlighting and macros. It’s great for both gaming and general use, but it’s awfully expensive unless you'll leverage every last extra. Read More…

What We Liked…

Four versions available, with different Cherry MX switches

Can host two macros on each key, thanks to Easy-Shift[+] feature

Extremely flexible key-backlighting controls

What We Didn’t…

Quite pricey, even for a mechanical keyboard

USB ports are 2.0, not 3.0

Roccat Ryos MK Pro Review

Table of Contents

Introduction

Don't be fooled: You can’t merely look at a PC keyboard today to know what you’re dealing with. You simply have to put your fingers on it. The difference between the cheap rubber-dome keyboards that have dominated the PC scene for years and the new wave of premium mechanical models is the difference between sandpaper and silk—or a gristly Sizzler steak and a perfectly seared wedge of filet mignon.

Mind you, mechanical keyboards have been around forever. Indeed, they were one of the staples of computing input up until the late 1980s, as anyone familiar with a clackety, Sherman-tank-built IBM Model M or Northgate OmniKey keyboard could tell you. Around that time, though, rubber-dome keyboards swiftly gained in popularity, undercutting mechanicals and dominating the market. Their inexpensive cost of manufacturing quickly overran the rugged, built-to-last mechanicals, which went into hibernation, more or less, for the next 20 years.

In recent years, however, mechanical keyboards have made a return—big time—among makers of gaming input devices. Gamers like them for their oh-so-satisfying typing feel (thanks to the special switch mechanisms under their keys), as well as for designs that go far beyond the productivity-centric battlewagon mechanical boards of old. These modern models have LED mood lighting, programmable dedicated macro keys, and more. Discriminating typists also go ga-ga for these models; there's simply no comparison between them and common rubber-dome keyboards if you type a ton.

Rubber-dome or membrane keyboards get their name from springy rubber hemispheres under each key that make the keys bounce back when you press them. (That rubber or rubber substitute is also what makes their keys feel mushy.) Mechanical keyboards, on the other hand, have a discrete spring-loaded switch under each key, which gives them a distinct feel. But those switches are what also makes them so pricey. (It’s hard to find a mechanical board, even a basic one, new for much under $80 or $90.)

Most of today’s mechanical boards use key switches from a company called Cherry Corp. They come in a bunch of types, each dubbed with a color: Cherry MX Black, MX Red, MX Blue, and MX Brown. Cherry itself doesn’t describe its different key switches by these color nicknames, but the rest of the world—manufacturers, PR, and consumers—all do. Each switch type has its own distinctive characteristics, with some of their traits overlapping.

Riding today's still-cresting wave of mechanical boards, Roccat has released a new top-of-the-line keyboard of its own, the Ryos MK Pro. This mechanical keyboard packs in lots of features that gamers would want, plus a few hidden surprises. Still, maybe it's the economy, or maybe it's just us, but we’re having a hard time wrapping our brain around PC keyboards costing more than $100, never mind well above $150. Mechanical keyboards are expensive discretionary purchases to start with, and this one is one of the costliest of the lot today. When we wrote this review in mid-February 2014, the various versions of the Ryos MK Pro clicked in at around $160 to $170.

If mechanical keyboards of any stripe are premium hardware (and we’d argue they are), the Ryos MK Pro then qualifies as premium premium gear. With the entry point for mechanical keyboards around $80 to $90, this one’s fully double that. Technically, this isn't the priciest mechanical we’ve looked at in recent months—the Tesoro Durandal Ultimate G1NL came in at nearly $200 when we reviewed it—but it’s way, way up there.

Needless to say, for a keyboard to justify that kind of outlay, it needs to get a lot of things, if not everything, right. The Ryos MK Pro is certainly no ordinary keyboard, but we’re not sure it commands all that cash, either. Let’s take a look.